BENTSEN GROVE COMPUTER CLUB BULLETIN

Month of Augest 2003

 

MEETINGS

 

 

NONE

CURRENTLY

SCHEDULED

SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS:

If you would like to meet in a small group to discuss one of the following subjects, contact the following people.

 

PHOTOGRAPHY

WEB PAGE

GREETING CARDS

INVESTMENT CLUB

 

Bill Wiese

Harold Buechly

Donna Stanwood

Corinne Higbee

 

580-3184

519-7375

581-1671

585-5664

If you would like to lead a SIG, discuss it with Val.

Our  bulletin is also available on line by visiting http://www.bgrcc.com/ and clicking on bulletin. You may also select bulletins by its subject

NEED SOME HELP

TRY http://www.bgrcc.com/

Click on HELP

 

EMERGENCY

RESPONSE

TEAM

John Abbott….424-0537

Val Barron….…519-2319

Harold Buechly.519-7375

Claude Westfall 580-4042

 

BGLUG

Bentsen Grove Linux Users Group

By John Abbott

    Linux?  That's the kid that plays the piano in the Peanuts cartoons right?  There has been a lot of confusion about what Linux is and isn't. From I heard from "I heard it was free but they want $80 for it."  to "I'm no programmer and don't plan on becoming one!"   One of the most persistent comments that I hear is "It just a free version of Unix - you know, Unix Light."   Well SCO and Microsoft would love for you to think that its UNIX but it clearly is not although it uses a lot of similar commands. 

    Linux was created by Linus Torvald while a student at the
University of Helsinki in 1991.  When the 'kernel' (the engine that runs it all) was finished it was placed into the Open Source world.  The Open Source group began modifying and adding to the Kernel until it has evolved as one of if not the most powerful operating systems available.  An estimate of 28,000 programmers have contributed to the program that is now beginning to attack desktop users.  With the addition of KDE and GNOME desktop software it has become a very fast and very stable graphic interface (point and click).

    Why would anyone be interested in converting from Microsoft Windows to Linux?  Well how about -it is free, and almost all of the programs that run on it are free.  Or how about Open Office does everything that Microsoft Office does, plus a lot it can't - and its free.  Not convinced?  How about twice as many programs for any function on MS-Windows now available on Linux - and... yep... most are free.   And if you still aren't convinced - almost  everything that runs on MS-Windows can be made to run on Linux (and usually faster).  And if you still aren't convinced...  you can run both systems (not at once) on the same computer.

    So would you like to see it, or ask some questions about it - hey - and even learn to use it?  Well then you might want to set aside the third Thursday of each month (for now at least) and plan on dropping into the BGLUG.  Our first meeting will be in November when the "season" has started.  Come, plan on munching on some pizza and learning a little about Linux.  There will be a sign-up sheet for copies of Linux on CD ($8 per set) and information on where you can download it free, order it on-line cheaply - or get one of those fancy boxed sets with a book (however all LINUX comes with the documentation INSIDE the system).    If you want to come have some of John's espresso, munch on some pizza and learn about this marvelous software,  drop an e-mail to BGLUG   

 

BGRCC.COM, The web site, How it works

By Harold Buechly

How does our computer club, a small group, get such a short address for our site? A large business like Dell has 4 characters in their address and we have only one more. You have experienced entering a long address, maybe 20, 40 or possibly 80 or more characters to get to a site or a page within a site. First, “BGRCC” is not a word. To most people it is just random alpha characters. Who else would want to use them but us. It is meaningful to us, easy for us to remember, and easy for us to enter the address whether we are on our own computer or elsewhere.

I am also pleased that we got a “.COM” although an “.ORG” would also be appropriate. A “.COM” is by far the most common and desirable.

We registered BGRCC with a company named Domain Direct over 2 years ago and it took effect 2 days later.

There are many companies selling the services of domain registration. After some research, I was informed that Domain Direct did a first class job and included several other services.

E-MAIL If you address an e-mail to: val@bgrcc.com , you do not have to guess where it goes. You can also use editor@bgrcc.com , harold@bgrcc.com , corinne@bgrcc.com and it will be forwarded to the appropriate person. If you address an e-mail to useanywordhere@bgrcc.com it will arrive in the BGRCC in box and may be retrieved at a regular meeting on the club computer.

INTERNET If you go to your browser and enter www.val.bgrcc.com it will take you to a web page that Val did start a long time ago and it is still out there. Val, I think your page could use some updating.

Forwarding Statistics They can report the number of hits our site receives per day. In recent weeks it has been as high as 28 hits.

The cost to the club is less than 7 cents per day for the above services.

Where is our web page stored After you enter www.bgrcc.com in your browser, you are automatically pointed to http://my.awesomenet.net/~bentsen/bgrcc.html which is where our club page is located. It sure is easier to enter www.bgrcc.com than the Awesomenet address although either address will work. Awesomenet allows a personal web site on their server up to 10 MB at no additional charge to there customers. The computer club is one of their customers as well as many guest and residents of Bentsen Grove. The computer club takes advantage of their current policy of crediting our account $9.95 for each new customer that signs up with them through the computer club. As long as their policy remains in effect and we sign up enough customers, their service should not cost the club anything.

How is a web page created and published on the Awesomenet server If you look at HTML (The programming language used on the WWW) it may scare you. To create a web page you don’t have to know anything about that language. It’s not much different than writing a letter or an e-mail. The club site uses a combination of Microsoft Front Page and Microsoft Word to create and publish each page. All that is required is to create a page just like writing a letter, save it to your hard disk in a directory and publishing the contents of that directory to your ISP (In this case it is published to the Awesomenet server). In the future, any time you change something in a page within that directory or add a file to that directory, then publish the site it is updated on the WWW.

It is even easier to create a free web site at www.geocities.com Just go there and register. They have their own, easy to use software and lots of interesting effects available as well as lots of graphics. You can use your own pictures as well. Take a look at http://www.geocities.com/salmoczw/mypage.html by Claude Z. Westfall, http://www.geocities.com/texacan1233/ by Ruth King, http://www.geocities.com/lotzasmiles2c/ Hope Jones, http://www.geocities.com/texcarver/ by Marlin Johnson or http://www.geocities.com/bgrccclass/ .and the old BGRCC site at http://www.geocities.com/hfbuechly/

 

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